2008 Woodie Awards
Attacked With a Pointed Stick
-The Feature Presentation
Michael Stridsberg
Issue date: 10/24/05 Section: Features
One note before this column begins: Apparently, writing about "current events" in any way, shape, or form automatically makes a column classify as an editorial. This is the lesson I learned at this past week's newspaper meeting. According to my editors, whether or not an actual stance is taken is irrelevant; the mere mention of news meant that my column should have been placed in the Editorial section, and not in its normal Features slot.
However, they did stress to me that news only classifies as "current" if it, to put it one way, appears in the news section with any regularity. For example, writing about a club on campus is not a current event; invoking politics, as I did last week, most certainly is. In other words, I can write that the president of theatre is really a genetically modified stalk of broccoli - unless said president is also running for Congress.
*End of note*
So a funny thing happened last weekend - I ended up reporting on an actual news event. Oh, crap, does this count as a current event? After all, I would be writing on the reporting of the event, and not the event itself. But then again, someone may disagree. They better not banish me to the Editorial section for this! Maybe I should drop some subliminal hints throughout the column. Yeah, that ought to do it.
So as I was saying, I did some honest-to-god, actual journalistic reporting last weekend. Somehow, I managed to get myself talked into writing about a women's hockey game - the FEATURE of the afternoon events, I may add. Things like this tend to happen to me. I swear, sometimes I can be too nice for my own good. I get to talking to someone - in this case, an editor (who else?) - and they mention that they need someone to do something, and before you know it, there I am. Someone needs to help me develop a mean streak. It might scare off all this other stuff.
So the question on everybody's mind is surely: How does real journalism compare to FEATURES writing? The one thing I noticed is: facts are a lot more important for the real stuff. For example, if the final score of the game is 6-0, it really would not do for me to say the final score was 34-8. This directly contradicts my philosophy. My philosophy is, the same team won either way, so what does it matter what the final score was? In another ten years, nobody will remember what it was anyway, so I figure a larger score will at least make it sound more interesting. Unfortunately, the establishment frowns on this sort of thing.
However, they did stress to me that news only classifies as "current" if it, to put it one way, appears in the news section with any regularity. For example, writing about a club on campus is not a current event; invoking politics, as I did last week, most certainly is. In other words, I can write that the president of theatre is really a genetically modified stalk of broccoli - unless said president is also running for Congress.
*End of note*
So a funny thing happened last weekend - I ended up reporting on an actual news event. Oh, crap, does this count as a current event? After all, I would be writing on the reporting of the event, and not the event itself. But then again, someone may disagree. They better not banish me to the Editorial section for this! Maybe I should drop some subliminal hints throughout the column. Yeah, that ought to do it.
So as I was saying, I did some honest-to-god, actual journalistic reporting last weekend. Somehow, I managed to get myself talked into writing about a women's hockey game - the FEATURE of the afternoon events, I may add. Things like this tend to happen to me. I swear, sometimes I can be too nice for my own good. I get to talking to someone - in this case, an editor (who else?) - and they mention that they need someone to do something, and before you know it, there I am. Someone needs to help me develop a mean streak. It might scare off all this other stuff.
So the question on everybody's mind is surely: How does real journalism compare to FEATURES writing? The one thing I noticed is: facts are a lot more important for the real stuff. For example, if the final score of the game is 6-0, it really would not do for me to say the final score was 34-8. This directly contradicts my philosophy. My philosophy is, the same team won either way, so what does it matter what the final score was? In another ten years, nobody will remember what it was anyway, so I figure a larger score will at least make it sound more interesting. Unfortunately, the establishment frowns on this sort of thing.